I don't like it when gay people call themselves queer

[tx_doc]

I feel that the word "queer" is more inclusive for all gay people. Usually when someone says "gay" people automatically imply men. I think queer embrases gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgendered and intersexed people. I agree that the word has been used in a homophobic manner for ages but by adopting it and not giving the word the power to offend the non-queers that use it will eventually stop.

 

[3nipples]

I'm not politically correct and don't expect others to be either. I don't care what word(s) are used to describe us; what I care about is the attitude behind the words.

 

[floorrunner]

By using derogatory words ourselves we are giving other people permission to use them. If I call my self a fag then I am telling others its ok to call me a fag. I believe the same thing with the word nigger. It is wrong for anyone to use it.

 

[spearsfan20]

i don't care how gay i may be, but i would never describe myself as a queer. we guys have a lot to go through in society with homophobic fucks calling us out of our names. it is one thing when you stereotype yourself as being a queer and yet you get offended when someone calls you a faggot or the name that you so dear to carry on your shoulders. it's just freaking ridiculous. i would want to be looked at as a successful person and not a sexuality.

 

[Jeimuzu]

I've always hated the term. It makes me think of camp people, and from there the camp twat who made all my friends hate gay people.

 

[ronnie_h]

i really don't care.. words can't hurt my at all.. yes, i'm a queer faggot & cocksucker.. so what?

 

[spreadeagle]

Since most reputable and established universities have Departments of Queer Studies, perhaps it's time you entered the 21st century and educated yourself about your history.

 

[NongreasySweatproof]

I had always thought that `queer' was supposed to be more inclusive and flexible, describing anyone who didn't feel conventionally straight.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that "most" reputable universities have Depts. of Queer Studies. Queer "theory," from what I understand, is a part of literary criticism these days, and people also study sexual identity issues in various departments like Women's Studies, anthro, etc. but I haven't heard of too many actual departments dedicated to this issue. Actually, I'm a little ambivalent about a lot of these departments that, at least titularly, are dedicated to studying a specific group of people. On the one hand, I think it's important to study underrepresented groups, but at the same time, I think most research and teaching on this sort of thing should be more interdisciplinary.

 

[RenaissanceMan]

I had always thought that `queer' was supposed to be more inclusive and flexible, describing anyone who didn't feel conventionally straight.

When it's used as an adjective to mean "LGBT" then I find it completely fine. Some people also include Q for questionning...I think "queer" adequately represents everyone non-straight.

Now, when some homophobe uses it as "fucking queer" or "stupid queers", then that's something different, mostly because of the "fucking" and "stupid".

But I still don't like when it's used as a noun. I'm not "a gay", or "a queer". I'm a man who is gay or queer. The noun seems to imply too much stereotyping (for me anyway). The adjective only attributes to me a general feel of my sexual orientation, which is non-straight.

 

[douseiai]

i never really heard queer in the negative sense so i use it fine... though fag and faggot both bother me....

 

[Jeimuzu]

What happened?

It's quite a long story, but I've got it posted in another thread, so I'm gonna copy and paste it across, and just edit bits so it fits. Basically, this was the reply to someone asking how I know my friends won't react well to me being gay;

I have two best mates. One of them (We'll call him B, for argument's sake) got totally freaked out when one of his friends - We'll call him A - got outed and suddenly became massively camp (Well, camp for a fourteen year old), and they didn't stay friends much longer - although A & B's friendship wasn't as strong or long-running as the one between B & me, admittedly.

The other one (Call him C)... well, A also managed to alienate him from gay people. This time, there was a good reason. C had just returned from the funeral of his much beloved grandmother, and A found it acceptable to start insulting her, despite having never met her or heard of her before C took a day off to go to the funeral, out of pure spite, and wanting to kick C while he was down.

Anyways, I'm gay, I'm homosexual, but I'm not queer or a faggot.
Those terms... Well, queer, for me, is someone who flaunts their gaiety, treats it like it's something to be proud of. I'm not proud to be gay. It'd be like saying I'm proud to be brunette. I'm not, it's just who I am. It's nothing but an adjective, something to summarise and marginalise me.
Faggot means nothing to me. It's just a word that someone likes to use to hurt people, and I've never been called it. I know striaght guys who have, though. By now, where I live it's more a derogatory term for camp people than homosexuals. And I assure you, I know more straight camp men than homosexual camp men.

The one and only time I've acknowledged Fag to mean homosexual was when a friend decided to go see if he could get a cigarette off a friend, because he'd ran out; so he said to all us non-smokers that he was talking with at the time, "I'm gonna go bum a fag" without realising the massive double-entendre in that sentence.

 

[Aver_Fame2005]

In some of the circles I travel in Queer is often used to describe artists, hetero and homo, who feel outside of the mainstream. I know some very interesting, fascinating and quite intelligent people who self-identify as queer.

Personally I don't take issue with it and in the proper context/setting would probably be complimented if I were called Queer.

Obviously this is a very personal topic based on what your set of life experiences has been.

 

[spreadeagle]

And if you looked up the history of the word "queer" you'd find that it means weird and not normal, somethings I don't identify myself as. I'm a gay man, not a queer.

Actually, if you look up the history of the word 'queer' you'll see its meaning shifting over time. The meaning of a word is never fixed; definitions expand constantly according to usage and context. You can't use this argument and then expect to use the word 'gay' to define yourself.

 

[luminum]

Right, are you a 'happy' man 24-7? No. That would mean that you shouldn't use a word unelss it directly and has always pertained to what you are.

I don't appreciate faggot because faggot is never used as a positive term. Even when it's used by other people in jest, it's only funny because it's suggestive and sarcastic. Like calling a friend a whore or a slut.

Queer has changed in meaning. It's used to include all members of the LGBT community as well as people who don't necessarily feela ccurately described by those four terms. The fact that it is gaining in use as a positive and inclusive statement should hint that you have to get over its former stigma and embrace the meaning it has as a positive statement.

That doesn't mean that it's okay to use it in a negative way, since the intent is still wrong and the meaning has changed. We embrace the term 'gay' when it pertains to our sexuality as a descriptor, but we still don't approve of using 'gay' as a negative descriptor such as 'that's so gay' or 'don't be so gay'. Even in that sense, gay had a bad connotation and could be defined as a 'slur' instead of an objective descriptor.

But saying that we're queer allies or talking about the 'queer community' or investigating 'queer themes' in literature isn't invoking its negative meaning. But saying that someone is a queer derogatively does make it inappropriate.

It's just a matter of accepting a word's growing meaning versus maintaining what it used to mean or the other ways it's used.

 

[Alive and Free]

I would never call myself queer.

 

[confusedboy23]

Gay, queer, fag......whatever! Those are just labels. As long as they're not used in any derogatory or mean way, it doesn't bother me. I am who I am!

 

[ablaze176]

Some people use queer if they don't want to apply any other label to pigeonhole their sexual identity. My friend here at school is technically "bisexual" but she sees her sexual identity as more complicated than that and the term bisexual applies to something different than what she feels she is, so she calls herself "queer."

I have somewhat of a problem with the origin of the term, and that's why I just call myself gay (well... also because my sexual orientation is pretty simple-- I'm attracted to men and not women), but some people like the term because it can refer to any non-straight sexual orientation without applying any definite labels.

 

[trawler69]

Personaly I don't like the term queer as it tends to be used in a derrogative manner, by deffinition it implies inexplicably different. It was used to taunt me at school so I am a bit biassed. Gay standing either for happy or God As You has much more positive and inclusive implications. I am however not a fan of political correctness and am now willing to identify with either but with a prefernce for Gay.